I saw x3 cultural events in Australia.

That’s not strictly true as that count only accounts for theatrical events.

In actual fact, I watched many films on my various flights to and fro:

Valkyrie (sure I’ve seen it before)
Love ‘N Dancing (rubbish but made me want to take up swing dancing again)
A Bunch of Amateurs (quite rubbish but mildly entertaining when you do what we do)
The Simpsons (x1 episode)
Some of Confessions of a Shopaholic (as bad as I’d expected)
Are You There? (Completely adorable. Michael Caine and the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory boy – watch it if ever you can)
Revolutionary Road (over-rated)
17 Again (nonsense)
Several episodes of Mad Men (and yes, it’s just like that. We just don’t dress as well)
He’s Just Not That Into You (really??)

I listened to a good portion of Bach’s cello concerto.

And then we had the Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art in which I loved this exhibit by a fellow called Tom Moore in particular:


(It was a huge giant room full of stuff, by the way. Not just this slim collection of items.)

And the Singapore Art Museum. Also no slouch on the contemporary art front.

(I’ve just voted incidentally for Felicia Low in the President’s Young Talents competition)

But my inevitable favourite was The Theatre Stuff.

Streetcar Named Desire was a minor miracle. Gail somehow managed to lay her hands on some returns and bless her for her efforts. It was a tremendous production. Neatly staged, beautifully directed, great cast, a beautiful retelling of a magic story. Cate can clearly act very respectably in real life. My only criticisms of the production were so tiny as to be incidental. Maybe Stanley shouldn’t have been quite so hot. Cate clearly was not quite as much of a faded beauty as Blanche really should be. But she was desperate enough to compensate. And they made the steps between the two levels of apartments out of work rather than cast iron so we had no satisfying hollow thunk as they dashed between the two. But this is pedantry. It was marvellous stuff.

I almost didn’t see my Melbourne Fringe Show as I pitched up entirely speculatively to my chosen performance. Arbitrarily chosen as it sounded fractionally more polished than the other choices in the brochure. (So few - relatively – choices. It demonstrated neatly quite how spoilt we are in Edinburgh.) But mournfully moping on a bench outside the sold out Arts Centre and plotting what I might see (what venue I might reasonably be able to find) instead, a woman came darting out of the box office with two precious spare tickets did anyone want them?

The subject matter of the play was so miserable that it might not have been the end of the world if I missed it. Though the title And No More Shall We Part might have been something of a giveaway. It was a cracking script by a chap called Tom Hollway. Lovely dialogue. And beautifully acted by apparently two of Melbourne’s finest actors, Denis Moore and Margaret Mills. It told the mournful tale of a woman diagnosed with a mortal disease who decides to kill herself, to the disappointment of her husband, but she ploughs on anyway. He’s sad. She’s sad. She dies. But unfortunately it takes one and a half hours before she takes her final breath and it’s clear where the play is headed approx thirty minutes in. I’m wondering whether I might source the script, trim it down to the full of mournful but not yet realised first forty or so minutes and make it a one act. It’d need two exceptional sixty-something actors. Hmm, not sure I know any of them…

And then the night afore I left the land altogether, I luckily waited for the rather spectacular denouement of Transe Express’ Mischievous Bells. My Melbourne companion, Anne, was not so patient and missed it. But it was a chilly chilly night.
My photos do it precisely no justice but luckily, this lass did a rather better job of it.

A fitting end to my trip to t'other side of the world.